From his original base at Toorak Cellars, Lyndon Kubis, along with business partners Renton Carlyle and Mark Hopkinson, have expanded into territory less well serviced, including Milton in Malvern and the notoriously dry zone of Surrey Hills (not to be confused with Sydney’s Surry hills, which is afforded much better amenity) in Melbourne’s east, with the Hills. The model has been built around the Italo-transplant enoteca mould pioneered here by the likes of the City Wine Shop and Gertrude Street Enoteca.
The Alps, in Commercial Road Prahran, is in the same mould, with ostensibly a wine retail space made much more comfortable with a sympathetically refined interior, as well as the availability of classic wine bar snacks – charcuterie, pickles, salumi, gravlax and the like. The high-altitude nomenclature is picked up throughout the wine offer, with a lean towards the regions flanked by the Alps – Savoie, Jura, Burgundy, Piedmont, the Veneto. The occasional pair of skis or stocks, and a snow-themed print or two keep the Alpine theme running, as does the private ‘cabin’, and the scent of pine trees in the rear courtyard.
Overall, while the vibe is very much built around Tintin in Tibet, the brief is far from restrictive across the wine and food offer. The Alps is very much what we’ve come to expect from Kubis and co, as is the super-informed and ultra-relaxed service. The wine selection, either take away or in-house with modest corkage, runs to 400 bins with 20 by the glass, and while typically taking roads less travelled, it is a more than inclusive selection.
Daniel Lewis and Simon Benjamin have given the ‘small is beautiful’ mantra somewhat more credence with their charmingly petite all-day eatery, Napier Quarter. Lewis hails from Brisbane, while Benjamin would be known by many a Melburnian as the former part-owner and front man of the much cherished, and also modestly proportioned, institution that is Bar…
Just as Con Christopoulos was almost single-handedly responsible for reclaiming the Paris end of Melbourne’s city from what looked like terminal decline some decades ago, he too is redrawing the borders west of Elizabeth Street. In territory mired in restaurant touts, with menus pitched mainly to a tourist audience, and otherwise populated by city workers…
Little Andorra has the warm wood, terrazzo and whitewash interior of Melbourne’s classic Euro-leaning bars, with vinyl spinning and a killer wine list it makes perching at that bar irresistible, but don’t miss booking for Mertcan Dogusgen’s set-menu feast.
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